September 7th, 2011
Ollie will be 6 months old on friday. 6 MONTHS OLD. I think I’m going to cry. Seriously.
In the last 6 months, I’ve encountered many baby accessories, but these are my favorites so far:
PUJ tub: I couldn’t have lived without this for the first 5 months of Ollie’s life. Now he can sit in a flat sink, so we’ll retire it until the next little one comes.
Jack’s Harvet Baby Food: LOVE this organic frozen baby food. Just like mom makes because mom is a working mom and has no time to actually make it.
Beaba Silicone Spoons: These clean up so well, don’t have hard metal parts, and Ollie loves to chew on them.
Jumperoo: Are you kidding me? This was the best 75 bucks I have ever spent in. my. life. If you have a baby who is old enough, go and get one right now, you will not regret it.
Nuk or Playtex Ortho “Binkies” (KA that’s for you): A great pacifier is the best invention in the world. I just wish you could get them in more colors. boo.
Aden & Anais Swaddlers: These are awesome multi-purpose blankets that breath really well, and don’t over-heat baby. They wash and wear really well instead of looking dingy and gross.
What are your favorite baby products?
February 10th, 2011
It is true, I have baby on the brain these days! My Etsy favorites have changed from cute jewelry, headbands, and purses to baby booties and stuffed animals. I thought I would share some of the adorable handmade items for baby. Keep up the great work Etsy friends! Links are at the bottom.
Knit Hat • Personalized Necklace • Letterpress Thank You Cards • Wool Whale • Air Balloon Mobile • Yellow Teddy Bear • Teal Elephant • Cloud Pillow • Grey Booties • Owl Pillow • Onesie with Argyle Tie • Yellow-striped Baby Legs •
January 23rd, 2011
So it has taken me a long time to decide what the nursery was going to look like. We did find out that we are having a BOY so that rules out pink… I had been thinking aqua/teals and greys but it just wasn’t exciting me. After talking to Mr. Project about dressers, he decided he would rather build his own than buy one. So we set to designing what it would look like and be made of. We decided to go modern and streamlined and make a 6-drawer birch dresser with stainless steel knobs from Restoration Hardware. I still hadn’t decided on colors, but I really wanted to use a big chevron for the bumper pads. I looked at available colors, and almost went with blue/cream, but that just didn’t feel right. So I asked Mr. Project if he thought yellow (my favorite color) was too girly for a boy’s nursery. He didn’t think so at all (he does love bright colors), so I went a little crazy and created this “inspiration board” for the room. The dresser is Mr. Project’s finished dresser, and the crib is a graphic I made that represents the crib that Mr. Project is going to make in a few weeks. Check it out:
The art, I am going to make by cutting vinyl and applying it to birch plywood sheets. The final design will be different – this art I found on etsy and modified to look closer to what I’m envisioning. The lamp is from Overstock.com and I’ll replace the shade with a white drum shade covered in some grey/white mod fabric. The chair is an Eames Rocker from DWR. The yellow side table shown is from Bellacor, but I am hoping to find a vintage table at a garage sale and paint it sunshine yellow. The grey damask rug is from Overstock, I really wanted something a little more mod/boyish, but for the price, this one is great, and I really don’t want to spend too much on a baby rug that will probably get pooped on. The ceramic elephant is perfect… but it’s no longer being sold at West Elm… so I have to find something else, but I can dream about this cute little elephant. For the bedding, I am planning to make the bumpers with yellow chevron fabric and steel gray piping (already ordered), and I’ve found some steel gray sheets and just need to find/make a white pleated crib skirt and add a yellow stripe to the bottom… shouldn’t be too hard, right??
So that is the plan! I just got to get it all together and add some more accents here and there. Oh and the best part… if the baby boy turns out to be a baby girl, I won’t have to redecorate!
January 16th, 2009
As I was cutting out squares for my pincushion, I realizes that I would be making a cute stuffed cube. And so I thought it would be really cool to make a “soft ABC baby block”. I wanted to make it slightly smaller and without the raw edges showing. So It was a bit of a different process. Here are the steps I took…
Cut 6 3″x3″ squares. I recommend wool.
Next you’ll want to embroider letters on the pieces. There are a few choices for embroidery. An embroidery machine (which I used), embroidering by hand, and some sort of iron on transfer.
Since I had already cut out my squares, they were too small to fit in the embroidery hoop. So I stretched some thin cotton and pinned them in the center of the hoop
square pinned to cotton in embroidery hoop
Then I just set the embroidery to do one letter, in the middle of the field as big as I could — which was 40 mm. I would have loved to do them bigger, but I only have the stock designs that came with the machine.
embroidering the "A"
After the “A” was all embroidered, I trimmed the cotton backing that it was attached to. I just trimmed fairly close to the letter, It doesnt have to look perfect because it will be hidden.
backside of the now-embroidered square
I followed those same two steps on each of the squares, embroidering A-F. You could also embroider numbers or images. I think embroidering by hand would give you a lot more flexibility… however it would take much much longer!
I went through the same steps as my first project. Sewing 4 squares side-by side, then to each other, followed by attaching the top and bottom:
4 sewn side-by side. This would be extra cute if it spelled baby.
sewn into an "open cube"
Now you’ll notice that I have the wrong side facing out. On this cube, different from the pincushion, I want to hide all the raw edges. So I’m sewing the whole square inside out and then reversing for the final soft block. You could do it with the edges showing like yesterday — it saves a bit of hand stitching in the end.
sewing on the top square
the bottom square is sewn on 3 sides waiting to be turned inside out & stuffed
Once you have sewn the bottom square on three sides, you will need to turn your cube inside out. As you turn it inside out, you will have to push the corners out as much as you can so it does not look sloppy. Then go ahead and stuff it really really full! You’ll need some thread and a needle to finish the cube up nice and clean.
Once you have your needle threaded. You’ll need to fold the raw edges into the cube and start stitching. You can pin them along the way, but this was such a small edge that I just held it in place as I stitched. I used a “baseball” stitch to get a smooth corner. That basically means that I sewed from the outside of one square to the inside of the stitch and then sewed from the outside of the opposite square again to the inside of the stitch. This makes a pattern similar to a baseball stitch.
the completed stitched side
And there you have it! My completed Soft ABC baby block next to my cute pin cushion! I think the baby block would be so cute as a set – you could do one with numbers and one with pictures and give them at a baby shower. Such a sweet handmade gift!
